Global Tourism Innovators
THIS IS WHERE IT BEGINS…
MEET LEADING PLAYERS OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY AND TAKE YOUR STARTUP FROM LISBON TO THE WORLD.
The Tourism sector has been booming for the past decade in Portugal. Over the last three years, The Journey has been connecting the main players of this boom with innovators from all over the world. The Journey is much more than a startup program in the tourism area. It is a merge between Tourism industry leaders and the most disruptive technological solutions into a 3-month piloting opportunity. On this third edition, here is what The Journey is bringing you:
Challenges
The Journey 3.0 is looking for startups from all industries with solutions that would tackle the following pain points in Hospitality, Parks & Monuments and Tours & Activities:
Hospitality
Parks & Monuments
Tours & Activities
Smart Connected Operations
Optimizing internal processes from the booking to the housekeeping services; Revenue management breakthroughs; Direct customer acquisition.
Management of visitor flows; Visitor counting and tracking systems; Outdoor and indoor geolocation.
Dynamic pricing to drive more profitability and enable smart discounting; Connecting to OTAs, local concierge, and other resellers.
Seamless Traveler Journey
Reduce check-in / check-out time; Real time feedback tools; Mobile key and keyless entry systems.
Digitize and automate key operations; Real-time information to the visitor regarding weather forecast, waiting times, etc.
Smarter, safer and easier ticketing systems.
Boost the Customer Experience
Use of big data to build customer profile; Predictive analytics to forecast seasonality and optimize operations.
Gamification both for adults and children; AR and VR both for indoor and outdoor;
Expand the cultural offer through the holistic customer experience, promoting real-time up/cross/post selling options.
Provide benefits to passengers from rich real-time data tailored to their profiles, to ease their journeys and improve the travel experience, in exchange for their own participation providing and validating the information.
Sustainable Development Solutions
Domotica for hotels; Optimize energy and water consumption; Predictive maintenance for buildings.
Flora and fauna identification including auto-detection of non-native invasive plants.
Track and optimize routes to reduce points of friction and tourism pressure.
Solutions
AUGMENTED REALITY
VIRTUAL REALITY
BIG DATA
DOMOTICS
PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS
GAMIFICATION
GEOLOCATION
IOT
AUTOMATION
MESSAGING APPS
Pilots
Adapt, test and scale your solution with these tourism industry leaders:
Established as an international player and a leader in the Iberian transport sector, Grupo Barraqueiro is an experienced company founded in 1915.
Constantly looking to evolve, it specializes in the design and implementation of innovative passenger and freight mobility.
Parques de Sintra (meaning Parks of Sintra) was created in 2000 and classified as a Cultural Landscape World Heritage by UNESCO.
As a public entity, it manages the most important natural and cultural places in Sintra area, from its recovery and conservation to all the public’s visits and interactions. It also delivers a wider range of touristic and natural activities, as its parks are full of potential. Parques de Sintra attracts around 3.5 million annually.
One of the largest Portuguese hotel groups, Vila Galé manages all its 34 hotel units (25 in Portugal and nine in Brazil).
Envisioning to be a benchmark company in the hospitality industry, the group also aspires to an economic growth that is sustainable, as well as socially and environmentally responsible.
Participation in The Journey allowed the acquisition of new knowledge, that was possible through the networking between the Partners and through the sharing of the startups. With this new knowledge, we will be able to develop future projects and improve the present business.
The hospitality industry is evolving at an ever growing pace, fueled by technology advances and process innovations that open up new business models, increase productivity and transform the whole guest journey. As a large hotel group, Pestana is always looking for ways to improve our guests’ experience and innovate our processes, and Beta-i’s The Journey program provides us with an invaluable opportunity to connect with startups that push these boundaries and bring fresh new approaches to the problems we face. As a result, we have participated in the last two editions of the program and engaged in development pilots with 7 startups, some of which were the start of a commercial relationship between the companies.
Once again, ‘The Journey’ by Beta-i proved to be a plus for our organization. Continuing the legacy of the first edition, ‘The Journey’ gave us tools and Partners to improve our organizations’ skills providing new and improved experiences to our customers. Congrats to all ‘The Journey’ team.
Bootcamp Startups
Roadmap
1ST PHASE
Applications
June 19 – September 6
After we receive your application, we will assess your fit with the program. The startups with the highest evaluation score will be invited to an online pitch session, happening on the 18th and 19th of September.
2ND PHASE
Bootcamp
October 21 – 25
Lisbon (presence required)
The Top 20 startups selected during the online pitch will be invited to join one-week Bootcamp and learn about business model innovation, startup methodologies and tools, get additional product validation, define the value proposition and a business case to present to the Partners.
3RD PHASE
Pilot Development
October 29 – January 31, 2020
The best startups that participated in the Bootcamp will enjoy 12-14 weeks of close collaboration with the Partners, working closely with mentors of the program, together with Beta-i’s network.
4TH PHASE
Demo Day
TBD
Lisbon (presence required)
All the finalist startups will be presenting their solutions. It will be a public event where you will find potential investors, media, Partners and Beta-i representatives, among other invited guests from the Tourism industry.
Participating in The Journey for us was an unvaluable experience. It was an opportunity to learn painpoints of companies in an honest and direct conversation with each of the Partners. In two days we spoke with five companies in order to listen to their needs and offer our solution. It is a direct call to action. Also during the week we were given inspirational speeches, applied methodologies and resources to elevate our pitch and win a pilot development with one of the Partners.
It was great to be at The Journey. The program was quite short (1 week) but good enough to learn a lot, make good friends and have lots of fun. Most of all we got to develop some really good partnerships with other Startups and develop a very promising pilot with one of the best Corporate companies in Portugal. Special thanks to all the staff team of the program that made us have such a great experience!
The Journey was an amazing program for us. At the bootcamp we’ve got the opportunity to know better the companies that we wanted to pilot our project with. António and Patrícia worked really hard alongside us, to make sure that we got the best experience and knowledge possible, throughout the whole program. I strongly recommend The Journey for startups in the travel industry and for all startup stages.
Partners
Main Partner
Partners
Ready to partner with startups for pilot development
Data Partner
Organized by
The Journey Impact
It has been a long Journey…
26
pilots developed
140
applications
+40
nationalities